Recently, I published a post that struck a nerve with a reader who will remain anonymous. That reader lashed out at my idiocy in several ways, including via a popular social network.

The wasted effort at insulting and haranguing me would have been quickly
forgotten if not for an interesting observation: my cyberstalking
critic executed his childish attacks through multiple accounts all associated with
his employer, a small services-oriented business.

On one of those
accounts, I discovered other rude, obnoxious and downright classless 'content' not directed at me.

One of the best things about working at Econsultancy is that we’re not sticklers for rules and regulations. We hire people, trust them to do a great job, and give them the independence to get on with things.

Nevertheless, as the team grows there needs to be a few internal ‘house guidelines’ for staffers, so we’re all singing from the same songsheet.

I think we can all agree digital marketing doesn’t fit neatly into a single
slot. Hence, success requires digital marketers to be expert at
yet another skill: the ability to drive
organizational change. Loosely translated, this means, "Those idiots and
their rules are driving me so crazy I could throttle them." Completely
understandable, digital marketing is hard enough as is.

Last week some of us from Econsultancy US had the pleasure of traveling to London for the Digital Cream event (the equivalent of September's Peer Summit in New York). Rebecca Lieb and I did a short talk made up of 5-minute bits on some hot topics from a US perspective. Naturally, social was the hottest of the hot. In Part 2, we'll look at Social Commerce and Email

In a post I wrote called the A-Z of social media for brands I decided that
P stands for Policy. I'm not one for too many rules and regulations,
but it is a good idea to define some clear guidelines to help staff
(especially novices) to do the right thing.

So let’s take a look at some real world social media policies and guidelines as used by companies. Zappos does a great job of summing it up in seven words, but the detail is also important and there are some fine suggestions here...